Chaos: Modern Warfare 3 Remastered Is Real, and I Think It's Coming Back

Modern Warfare Remastered came out all the way back in 2016, which means it has been 10 years since we got that game. It was a big hit, and people really thought Activision was going to keep doing remasters after it. But once Modern Warfare 2019 revitalized the series, the remasters got put on the shelf. Activision scrapped the planned remasters to keep the player base on Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone instead of splitting it further, and at the time, I get it. Warzone was blowing up, we had COVID, everybody was on Modern Warfare 2019. Why would you interrupt that streak?

That is reportedly what caused Activision to cancel the Modern Warfare 3 remaster too, despite there being pretty overwhelming evidence that it existed, including it getting officially rated but never actually revealed. And with how well the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports are doing, how poorly Black Ops 7 is doing, and how little hype there is for Modern Warfare 4 or the future of Warzone, I think it is pretty clear the writing is on the wall. Activision is looking to Call of Duty's past in order to support its future, and I think some kind of re-release of Modern Warfare 3 is inevitable. My goal here is to walk through all the evidence that convinces me of that.

Modern Warfare 3's campaign remaster was reportedly finished, but the multiplayer situation is murkier

Both Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 got remasters, even though one of them was missing its multiplayer at launch. It is a little bit of a weird move to remaster two parts of a trilogy and just leave the third sitting there by itself, so originally Modern Warfare 3 was indeed going to be remastered alongside the other two games. We have leaks proving that the Modern Warfare 3 campaign remaster was completed, and it was finished shortly after Modern Warfare 2's campaign remaster released.

It is still a little unclear whether a multiplayer mode was ever developed for the Modern Warfare 3 remaster. As many of you know, Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer remaster was originally supposed to be part of that package too, and there are a ton of leaks suggesting it was completely finished and sitting on a hard drive at Activision before someone made the decision to cut it from the release. Why? Who knows. Maybe they did not want to alienate the player base, but whatever the reasoning was, we do not actually know if the same thing happened to the Modern Warfare 3 remaster, or if its multiplayer was ever in development in the first place, or if Activision cut that from the plan before development even began.

The main takeaway is that we know for absolute certainty that Modern Warfare 3 Remastered exists in some capacity, whether that is campaign only or a complete package. With Call of Duty trying to milk the past right now, there is a really good chance that project gets revived.

A simple Black Ops style port could be a cheaper alternative to a full Modern Warfare 3 remaster

A full remaster is not the only way to get Modern Warfare 3 back in people's hands, because we just had the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports, and those cranked out millions of copies with simple one to one ports. If you are the execs in the Activision boardroom right now, you are looking at that and thinking you barely had to do any work and still made more than usual. It is a printing machine. I guarantee that as soon as they saw that money, the suits who do not really know what is going on with the actual Call of Duty community went and asked how many more of these they could do.

Activision now knows it does not actually have to remaster old games to make money off them. All it has to do is put a little work in, make them compatible with modern systems, and away it goes. I call this possibility Modern Warfare 3 enhanced. Iron Galaxy has been proving just how much money there is to be made with simple ports of classic games, and that lets people experience the games close to how they were back in the day while revitalizing the sub series. Modern Warfare 3 is widely seen as the best Infinity Ward game of the Golden Age, which makes it an obvious pick for another PS5 port, and the game has a ton of DLC that was packaged differently from what people are used to today, which is extra money for Activision if they choose to sell that DLC a second time on a port.

Why I think Activision would release the finished remaster instead of building a cheaper port

Personally, I do not actually think a simple port is the route Activision would take, because a Modern Warfare 3 remaster was already in development and they paid for it. Why would they pay a different team to build a PS5 port of the original game from scratch when they allegedly already have a full remaster sitting on a hard drive somewhere at their offices? If that is true, they could even bundle the Modern Warfare 3 remaster with Modern Warfare Remastered and the Modern Warfare 2 remaster and sell the whole thing as an 80 dollar Modern Warfare trilogy remaster. Everybody would buy it.

So even though porting Modern Warfare 3 seems like the cheaper option, and normally it would be, I think Activision is in an interesting spot if this thing is already sitting finished on a hard drive. If it has already been developed but not released, why would you not just move forward with releasing it?

A fan made Modern Warfare 3 remaster called HMW is still online, and I think that is intentional

About a year ago, a massive fan made project called HMW came out. It is an overhaul mod for Modern Warfare Remastered that basically builds Modern Warfare 3 remastered out of the Modern Warfare Remastered framework, importing all the guns, maps, perks and streaks from Modern Warfare 3, plus some bonus guns and maps on top of it. It is an amazing project, and strangely enough, this is the kind of thing Activision usually jumps on and shuts down immediately.

Remember, Activision shut down the H2M project, but for some reason it has not touched this Modern Warfare 3 mod despite it being even more popular than H2M was. I think that is intentional. The mod is exclusive to PC, and we know the new console ports of classic Call of Duty games have been leaving PC out since PC already has modded clients. But it is also good publicity to keep people talking about Modern Warfare 3. If Activision is planning on bringing it back, keeping this project alive on the internet means that when the console version drops, either remastered or enhanced, people already have it fresh in their minds. The fan made Modern Warfare 3 remaster is basically free marketing for the official re-release, which is why I think it makes total sense that Activision has not shut it down yet. Once the official version comes out, I expect they will finally take it down.

Activision no longer seems worried about splitting the Call of Duty player base

I mentioned earlier that Activision originally canceled the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer remaster because it was worried about splitting the player base. Activision clearly does not care about that anymore. There are currently four main Call of Duty multiplayers active right now: Black Ops 7, Warzone, Black Ops 1, and Black Ops 2. Activision would probably like the community consolidated over just a couple of games, but there is a very good chance that is not going to happen with Modern Warfare 4 either.

Activision is clearly hoping Modern Warfare 4 gets things back on track, but I think that game is dead on arrival, especially with GTA 6 looming right after it. Activision has accepted that if it wants to keep Call of Duty alive, it has to split the player base with nostalgia baked games, because new Call of Duty is not doing it right now. With the success of the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports and the trouble facing Modern Warfare 4, Activision has to do something soon to revitalize the Modern Warfare sub series.

I said in a previous video that I did not think Activision would port any classic Modern Warfare games because it would not want to oversaturate the sub series with Modern Warfare 4 coming out. The more I think about it, the less I believe that actually matters to them, since this is the same company that released the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports during the Black Ops 7 life cycle. So if Modern Warfare 4 does not do extremely well, I think Activision will end up pushing out ports of classic Modern Warfare games anyway. All the signs point to me to Modern Warfare 3 coming back really, really soon.

What do you think, is Modern Warfare 3 Remastered actually on its way?